Lord Alfred Douglas

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1903 photograph of Lord Alfred Douglas by George Charles Beresford.

Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas (22 October 1870 – 20 March 1945), nicknamed "Bosie", was an English author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde. Much of his early poetry was Uranian in theme, though he tended, later in life, to distance himself from both Wilde's influence and his own role as a Uranian poet.

Contents

Early life and background

The third son of the 9th Marquess of Queensberry and his first wife, the former Sibyl Montgomery, Douglas was born at Ham Hill House in Worcestershire. He was his mother's favourite child; she called him Bosie (a derivative of Boysie), a nickname which stuck for the rest of his life.

Douglas was educated at Winchester College (1884–88) and at Magdalen College, Oxford (1889–93), which he left without obtaining a degree. At Oxford, Douglas edited an undergraduate journal The Spirit Lamp (1892-3), an activity that intensified the constant conflict between him and his father. Their relationship had always been a strained one and during the Queensberry-Wilde feud, Douglas sided with Wilde, even encouraging him to prosecute his own father for libel. In 1893, Douglas had a brief affair with George Ives.

In 1860, Douglas's grandfather, the 8th Marquess of Queensberry, had died in what was reported as a shooting accident, but his death was widely believed to have been suicide. In 1862, his widowed grandmother, Lady Queensberry, converted to Roman Catholicism and took her children to live in Paris.[1]

Apart from the violent death of his grandfather, there were other tragedies in Douglas's family. One of his uncles, Lord James Douglas, was deeply attached to his twin sister 'Florrie' and was heartbroken when she married. In 1885, he tried to abduct a young girl, and after that became ever more manic. In 1888, Lord James married, but this proved disastrous.[2] Separated from Florrie, James drank himself into a deep depression,[2] and in 1891 committed suicide by cutting his throat.[1] Another of his uncles, Lord Francis Douglas (1847–1865) had died in a climbing accident on the Matterhorn, while his uncle Lord Archibald Edward Douglas (1850–1938) became a clergyman.[1][3] (Douglas's only child was in turn to go mad, and died in a mental hospital.)

Alfred Douglas's aunt, Lord James's twin Lady Florence Douglas (1855–1905), was an author, war correspondent for the Morning Post during the First Boer War, and a feminist.[4] In 1890, she published a novel, Gloriana, or the Revolution of 1900, in which women's suffrage is achieved after a woman posing as a man named Hector l'Estrange is elected to the House of Commons. The character l'Estrange is clearly based on Oscar Wilde.[5]

Relationship with Oscar Wilde

In 1891, Douglas met Oscar Wilde and, although the playwright was married with two sons, they soon began an affair.[6] In 1894, the Robert Hichens novel The Green Carnation was published. Said to be a roman a clef based on the relationship of Wilde and Douglas, it would be one of the texts used against Wilde during his trials in 1895.

It was a tempestuous relationship. Douglas, known to his friends as 'Bosie', has been described as spoiled, reckless, insolent and extravagant. He would spend money on boys and gambling and expected Wilde to contribute to his tastes. They often argued and broke up, but would also always reconcile.

Douglas had praised Wilde's play Salomé in the Oxford magazine, The Spirit Lamp, of which he was editor (and used as a covert means of gaining acceptance for homosexuality). Wilde had originally written Salomé in French and in 1893 he commissioned Douglas to translate it into English — probably just in order to give him something to do. Douglas's French was very poor and his translation was highly criticised: a passage that goes "On ne doit regarder que dans les mirroirs" (French for "One should only look in mirrors") was translated as "One must not look at mirrors". Douglas' temper would not accept Wilde's criticism and he claimed that the errors were really in Wilde's original play. This led to a hiatus in the relationship and a major row between the two men, with angry messages being exchanged and even the involvement of the publisher John Lane and the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley when they themselves objected to Douglas' work. Beardsley complained to Robbie Ross: "For one week the numbers of telegraph and messenger boys who came to the door was simply scandalous". Wilde redid much of the translation himself, but, in a gesture of reconciliation, suggested that Douglas be dedicated as the translator rather than them sharing their names on the title-page. Accepting this, Douglas, in his vanity, compared a dedication to sharing the title-page as "the difference between a tribute of admiration from an artist and a receipt from a tradesman."[7]

On another occasion, while staying together in Brighton, Douglas fell ill with influenza and was nursed back to health by Wilde, but failed to return the favour when Wilde fell ill as well. Instead Douglas moved to the Grand Hotel and, on Wilde's 40th birthday, sent him a letter saying that he had charged him the bill. Douglas also gave his old clothes to male prostitutes, but failed to remove incriminating letters exchanged between him and Wilde, which were then used for blackmail.[7]

Alfred's father, the Marquess of Queensberry, quickly suspected the liaison to be more than a friendship. He sent his son a letter, attacking him for leaving Oxford without a degree and failing to take up a proper career, such as a civil servant or lawyer. He threatened to "disown [Alfred] and stop all money supplies". Alfred responded with a telegram stating: "What a funny little man you are".

Queensberry was infuriated by this attitude. In his next letter he threatened his son with a "thrashing" and accused him of being "crazy". He also threatened to "make a public scandal in a way you little dream of" if he continued his relationship with Wilde.

There was little love lost between father and son. Queensberry was well-known for his temper and threatening to beat people with a horsewhip. Alfred sent his father a postcard stating "I detest you" and making it clear that he would take Wilde's side in a fight between him and the Marquess, "with a loaded revolver".

In answer Queensberry wrote to Alfred (whom he addressed as "You miserable creature") that he had divorced Alfred's mother in order not to "run the risk of bringing more creatures into the world like yourself" and that, when Alfred was a baby, "I cried over you the bitterest tears a men ever shed, that I had brought such a creature into the world, and unwittingly committed such a crime... You must be demented".

When Douglas' eldest brother, Lord Drumlanrig, heir to the marquessate of Queensberry, died in a suspicious hunting accident in October 1894, rumours circulated that Drumlanrig had been having a homosexual relationship with the Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery. The elder Queensberry thus embarked on a campaign to save (as he saw it) his other son, and began a public persecution of Wilde. He and a minder confronted the playwright in his own home; later, Queensberry planned to throw rotten vegetables at Wilde during the premiere of The Importance of Being Earnest, but, forewarned of this, the playwright was able to deny him access to the theatre.

Queensberry then publicly insulted Wilde by leaving, at the latter's club, a visiting card on which he had written: "For Oscar Wilde posing as a somdomite" (a misspelling of sodomite). The wording on the card is disputed; although Hyde reports it as this, according to Merlin Holland, Wilde's grandson, it is more likely 'Posing somdomite' while Queensberry himself claimed it was 'Posing as somdomite'; Holland suggests that this wording would have been easier to defend in court.

The 1895 trials

In response to this card, and with Douglas's avid support, but against the advice of friends such as Robert Ross, Frank Harris, and George Bernard Shaw, Wilde sued Queensberry for criminal libel. The case went badly, since Queensberry had hired private detectives to document Wilde's and Douglas's homosexual contacts. Several male prostitutes were enlisted by the defence, led by Edward Carson, to give evidence against Wilde and, on advice from his lawyer, he dropped the suit. However, based on evidence raised during the case, Wilde was charged with committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons, a charge which covered all homosexual acts, public or private. Douglas's 1892 poem Two Loves, which was used against Wilde at the latter's trial, ends with the famous line that refers to homosexuality as the love that dare not speak its name.

In 1895, when during his trials Wilde was released on bail, Douglas's cousin Sholto Johnstone Douglas stood surety for £500 of the bail money.[8]

After a retrial (the jury in his first trial having been unable to reach a verdict), Wilde was convicted on 25 May 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour, first at Pentonville, then Wandsworth and then famously in Reading Gaol. Douglas was forced into exile in Europe. While in prison Wilde sent Douglas a very long and critical letter entitled De Profundis, describing exactly what he felt about him.

Following Wilde's release (19 May 1897), the two reunited in August at Rouen, but stayed together only a few months owing to personal differences and the various pressures on them.

Naples and Paris

This meeting was disapproved of by the friends and families of both men. During the later part of 1897, Wilde and Douglas lived together near Naples, but for financial and other reasons, they separated. Wilde lived the remainder of his life primarily in Paris, and Douglas returned to England in late 1898.

The period when the two men lived in Naples would later become quite controversial. Wilde claimed that Douglas had offered a home, but had no funds or ideas. When Douglas eventually did gain funds from his late father's estate, he refused to grant Wilde a permanent allowance, although he did give him occasional handouts. When Wilde died in 1900, he was relatively impoverished. Douglas served as chief mourner, although there reportedly was an altercation at the gravesite between him and Robert Ross. This struggle would preview the later litigations between the two former lovers of Oscar Wilde.

Marriage

After Wilde's death, Douglas established a close friendship with Olive Eleanor Custance, an heiress and poet. They married on 4 March 1902 and had one son, Raymond Wilfred Sholto Douglas (17 November 1902 - 10 October 1964).

Repudiation of Wilde

More than a decade after Wilde's death, with the release of suppressed portions of Wilde's De Profundis letter in 1912, Douglas turned against his former friend, whose homosexuality he grew to condemn. He was a defence witness in the libel case brought by Maud Allan against Noel Pemberton Billing in 1918. Billing had accused Allan, who was performing Wilde's play Salomé, of being part of a homosexual conspiracy to undermine the war effort. Douglas also contributed to Billing's journal Vigilante as part of his campaign against Robert Ross. He had written a poem referring to Margot Asquith "bound with Lesbian fillets" while her husband Herbert, the Prime Minister, gave money to Ross.[9] During the trial he described Wilde as "the greatest force for evil that has appeared in Europe during the last three hundred and fifty years". Douglas added that he intensely regretted having met Wilde, and having helped him with the translation of Salomé, which he described as "a most pernicious and abominable piece of work".

Libel actions

Douglas started his "litigious and libellous career" [10] by obtaining an apology and fifty guineas each from the Oxford and Cambridge university magazines The Isis and Cambridge for defamatory references to him in an article on Wilde.

He was a plaintiff and defendant in several trials for civil or criminal libel. In 1913 he accused Arthur Ransome of libelling him in his book Oscar Wilde: A Critical Study. He saw this trial as a weapon against his enemy Ross, not understanding that Ross would not be called to give evidence. In a similar way he had not appreciated the fact that his father's character would not be an issue when he urged Wilde to sue back in 1895. The court found in Ransome's favour.

In the most noted case, brought by Winston Churchill in 1923, Douglas was found guilty of libelling Churchill and was sentenced to six months in prison. Douglas had claimed that Churchill had been part of a Jewish conspiracy to kill Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War. Kitchener had died on 5 June 1916, while on a diplomatic mission to Russia: the ship in which he was travelling, the armoured cruiser HMS Hampshire, struck a German naval mine and sank west of the Orkney Islands. In spite of this, Douglas did write a sonnet in praise of Churchill in 1941.[11]

In 1924, while in prison, Douglas, in an ironic echo of Wilde's composition of De Profundis (Latin for "From the Depths") during his incarceration, wrote his last major poetic work, In Excelsis (literally, "In the highest"), which contains seventeen cantos. Since the prison authorities would not allow Douglas to take the manuscript with him when he was released, he had to rewrite the entire work from memory.

Douglas maintained that his health never recovered from his harsh prison ordeal, which included sleeping on a plank bed without a mattress.

Later life

Following his own incarceration in prison in 1924, Douglas' feelings toward Oscar Wilde began to soften considerably. He said in Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up that “Sometimes a sin is also a crime (for example, a murder or theft) but this is not the case with homosexuality, any more than with adultery”.[12]

Throughout the 1930s and until his death, Douglas maintained correspondences with many people, including Marie Stopes and George Bernard Shaw. Anthony Wynn wrote the play Bernard and Bosie: A Most Unlikely Friendship based on the letters between Shaw and Douglas. One of Douglas's final public appearances was his well-received lecture to the Royal Society of Literature on 2 September 1943, entitled The Principles of Poetry, which was published in an edition of 1,000 copies. He attacked the poetry of T. S. Eliot, and the talk was praised by Arthur Quiller-Couch and Augustus John.[13]

Douglas's only child, Raymond, was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in 1927 and entered St Andrew's Hospital, a mental institution. He was decertified and released after five years, but suffered a subsequent breakdown and returned to the hospital. When his mother, Olive Douglas, died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 67, Raymond was able to attend her funeral and in June he was again decertified and released. However, his conduct rapidly deteriorated and he returned to St Andrew's in November where he stayed until his death on 10 October 1964.

Death

Douglas died of congestive heart failure at Lancing in West Sussex on 20 March 1945 at the age of 74. He was buried at the Franciscan Monastery, Crawley, West Sussex on 23 March where he is interred alongside his mother, Sibyl, Marchioness of Queensberry, who died on 31 October 1935 at the age of 91. A single gravestone covers them both. The elderly Douglas, living in reduced circumstances in Hove in the 1940s, is mentioned in the Diaries of Chips Channon, who attended his funeral.

Writings

Douglas published several volumes of poetry; two books about his relationship with Wilde, Oscar Wilde and Myself (1914; largely ghostwritten by T.W.H. Crosland, the assistant editor of The Academy and later repudiated by Douglas), Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up (1940); and a memoir, The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas (1931).

Douglas also was the editor of a literary journal, The Academy, from 1907 to 1910, and during this time he had an affair with artist Romaine Brooks, who was also bisexual (the main love of her life, Natalie Clifford Barney, also had an affair with Wilde's niece Dorothy). He published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in 1919 [14], one of the first English language translations of the infamous anti-Semitic tract.

There are six biographies of Douglas. The earlier ones by Braybrooke and Freeman were not allowed to quote from Douglas’ copyright work, and De Profundis was unpublished. Later biographies were by Rupert Croft-Cooke, H. Montgomery Hyde (who also wrote about Oscar Wilde), Douglas Murray (who describes Braybrooke’s biography as "a rehash and exaggeration of Douglas’s book", i.e. his autobiography). The most recent is Alfred Douglas: A Poet's Life and His Finest Work by Caspar Wintermans, from Peter Owen Publishers in 2007.

Poetry

Poems (1896)

Tails with a Twist 'by a Belgian Hare' (1898)

The City of the Soul (1899)

The Duke of Berwick (1899)

The Placid Pug (1906)

The Pongo Papers and the Duke of Berwick (1907)

Sonnets (1909)

The Collected Poems of Lord Alfred Douglas (1919)

In Excelsis (1924)

The Complete Poems of Lord Alfred Douglas (1928)

Sonnets (1935)

Lyrics (1935)

The Sonnets of Lord Alfred Douglas (1943)

Non-fiction

Oscar Wilde and Myself (1914)

Foreword to New Preface to the 'Life and Confessions of Oscar Wilde' by Frank Harris (1925)

Introduction to Songs of Cell by Horatio Bottomley (1928)

The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas (1929; 2nd ed. 1931)

My Friendship with Oscar Wilde (1932; retitled American version of his Autobiography)

↑Dixie, Lady Florence, poet, novelist, writer; explorer and a keen champion of Woman's Rights in Who Was Who online at 7345683 at xreferplus.com (subscription required), accessed 11 March 2008

↑Heilmann, Ann, Wilde's New Women: the New Woman on Wilde in Uwe Böker, Richard Corballis, Julie A. Hibbard, The Importance of Reinventing Oscar: Versions of Wilde During the Last 100 Years (Rodopi, 2002) pp. 135-147, in particular p. 139